Curtis Dean Anderson, the man convicted of killing 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild of Vallejo and who confessed to the abduction of another Vallejo girl died Tuesday at the age of 46.

State prison officials confirmed Anderson died at 6:41 a.m. Tuesday in an intensive care unit at a Bakersfield hospital. He had been assigned to Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran but was transferred from SATF to an outside hospital on Nov. 28 for treatment of an ongoing medical condition. Prison officials said preliminary indications are that he died of natural causes.

Anderson was serving a 251-year prison for the kidnapping and molestation of one Vallejo child and then was sentenced to an additional 50 years after confessing to the murder of Fairchild.

Seven-year-old Xiana disappeared while walking to school in 1999 prompting massive community searches and vigils. Anderson confessed to her killing several times then recanted before accepting the guilty plea in 2005. He later said he only confessed to avoid the death penalty and be done with court appearances.

Xiana’s remains were found in the Santa Cruz Mountain in January 2001; more than a year after her disappearance.

Anderson had become the primary suspect after he was arrested for the second kidnapping in August 2000.

Researchers said Sunday the mass die-off occurred because unusually large amounts of sea ice forced penguin parents to travel farther in search of food for their young. By the time they returned, only two out of thousands of chicks had survived.